


Calling

by TheBun



Category: Game of Thrones (TV)
Genre: Fix-It, Future Fic, Homecoming
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-05-30
Updated: 2019-05-30
Packaged: 2020-03-29 19:12:51
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,563
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/19026172
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheBun/pseuds/TheBun
Summary: Jon Snow finds himself on a hunt. A confrontation ensues.





	Calling

**Author's Note:**

> So this is honestly my return to creative writing after years of nothing. This was something I wanted to read but wasn't finding. Hope you enjoy! Feedback appreciated! It felt stiff to write again after so long, but give me pointers!

Jon surveyed the forest around him. It was near dawn and the sky was beginning to pale with the weak light of a winter morning. He adjusted his sheep's furs around him, straightened his bow and took up his hunt, for 5he third morning of tracking. He knew he was closer than ever. The still trees and soft snowfall of the night before would make his quest for food easier, his prey having created new tracks with a nocturnal jaunt. 

15 years since the burning of kings landing, since he severed all ties with anything below the wall. Outside of bi yearly letters from Sansa, who informed him of bran, news if her betrothal and subsequent heirs, and requests that he visit Winterfell he had had little to no contact with anyone from before. The idea of facing the walls of his youth and then heartbreak, was almost an unthinkable task. So with ghost beside him he continued his care and ranging of the true north, his self imposed exile hardening and changing him but never removing the the stain and agony of what he had to do to protect the realm. Facing Sansa was an impossibility. Facing the bannermen who had declared him king in the north even more so. So he would send maps, artifacts, letters, never truly answering Sansa's prying questions into his wellbeing. He spoke to ravens as if they could hear him, he hunted to forget everything but the chase. As he followed the tracks of what seemed to be a midsized bear, all thoughts could melt away to the task at hand. 

Ghost sniffed air and let out a small snarl. He must be closer to the bear then he thought, as he slung the bow down from his shoulder, nocked an arrow, all his senses focused on small sounds and movements. If he could catch this bear it would mean food for many, pelts for the young, bones for tools, and a little bit of shock and approval from Tourmund, who never ceased to complain about Jon's lesser hunting skills. A small crack behind him hand him whirling around at the ready, prepared to loosen the arrow on his prey-

And there she was, standing in dark furs, sword and dagger at her belt hair tied back into a bun, grey eyes regarding him warily. She had outfitted herself for the journey judging by the snow shoes slung on her pack and the shaggy horse she pulled behind her. She was shorter then he remembered, his mind thought arbitrarily.   
"There's not much of me to be a good meal," she rasped, supposedly horse from disuse. "but if you believe the old stories, cannibals often develop a taste for human flesh outside of necessity."   
"Arya-" Jon choked, but was cut off as arms encircled him and held his middle tightly. Warm and relief washed through him, and a familiar ache in his chest grew stronger. He dropped his bow. 

"What, how did you, when-"  
"You're blubbering, Snow," she said slightly muffled by his furs.   
"I deserve to bubber," he snapped "it's been 15 years, and you can not just show up in the far north out of nowhere. Where have you been?"   
"Here, there, west. Where have you been?"  
"Dont," Jon heatedly responded, as Arya took a step back, away from him. The warm ring she had encircled him in felt excessively cold in her absence. "I've been here. Only here. You left. When did you return to Westeroes?"

Grey met grey and scowl met scowl. For a moment they could have been in winterfell's courtyard, arguing about some misdeed of Arya's against Bran or Sansa. The familiarity almost brought a smile to Jon's face, but the wall cracks that he had built around her memory threatened to break. She wasn't supposed to be alive. He had mourned her for many years, when he wasn't mourning the rest. He has yearned for word from Sansa but had never risked to ask. He had imagined her death; in an thousand scenarios, drowning, stabbing, disease. At yet here she stood, seemingly unharmed with a scar through her eyebrow, one on her chin and a scowl so similar to his own that he considered hallucination due to the cold to be a possibility. 

"You're supposed to be dead." Was all he could manage.   
Her eyes narrowed in displeasure. "You're supposed to be at the wall. I had to walk for weeks to find even a hint of the wildlings. You look like a wildling. And that beard is ridiculous. I didn't even know you could grow one. "

"Well, you could have sent word. And of course I can grown a fucking beard Arya. I'm close to my fortieth name day and I'm no longer the boy you left behind." Jon argued, swiping a hand over his now wild beard which obscured the lower half of his face completely.   
"And I'm no longer a girl, but I’m still you sister you thick headed goon." Arya sniffed in the cold, sounding wery "Just where did you want me to send word to? Sansa said your responses are short and you and have refused every invitation to come home." She glared "So I knew the only way to get through to you was-"  
"You've seen Sansa?"  
"Well I wasn't going to sail into White Harbor to ride past Winterfell, was I? I love Sansa also, you sad sack of shit." She said plainly. "I've seen Bran as well, I sailed into Kings Landing first. You've been left to wallow in your own sadness far to long. They've let you rot up here. It's time to come home."   
Jon stood frozen. Maybe it was the cold or his numbing fingers or the truth laid nakedly and bluntly out for him. His eyes cast downward. 

"Jon-" Arya reached out a hand to him, and he held it softly.   
"I cant. Arya, I don't deserve it. Not the warmth of Sansa's children, or even the happiness that comes from seeing you here. I don't deserve any of it. I can't regret what I did, but I have deserved every one of these years and I don't see how to forgive myself, or how anyone can forgive me."

Her grip tightened "You also deserve peace. Pig headed fool, you did your duty. You did what I should have done. What Varys should have accomplished, and what Tyrion should have had the balls to do himself. If I had done it, would you have forgiven me? Or would you allow me to suffer alone in silence for protecting the realm and the people from a tyrant?"  
Jon looked into her eyes, mirror images of his own. The connection and understanding that had been there in the time of their youth was there still. She knew he had been punishing himself, had never taken another woman to his bed in fear that he was poison, or cursed. He had kept distance from the free folk and had never allowed himself to be warmed by any of their companionship outside ghosts.   
"I could never stay mad at you," he grunted, and a small smile formed on her face. 

"So then why are you continuing to punish yourself like this?" She asked "Bran pardoned you 5 years ago. Sansa has asked you to visit every year. You're coming back with me now, and if you want to travel north again then so be it, but know that I'm done with my guilt and traveling outside of westeroes. I'm staying and I need our pack again. Do you want to die a lone wolf?" She patted Ghost's head "Well, not entirely alone I suppose."  
"I don't-"  
"Jon, you've never been able to win against what I want before. What makes you think this time will be different? If you don't come willingly I'll stay until you do. If I run out of patience, I'll knock you over the head and tie you to my horse. So what will it be, will you come willingly?" 

Jon closed his eyes tears seeping in under the lids. He never thought in a hundred years he would see Arya again, or hold her, or be allowed to be happy as her partner in crime as they had been. It came naturally to him to bend to her will. His decision as he saw it did not matter.   
"I see your travels have made you worse. Who has indulged you all these years?'  
She smiled sweetly but it was razor sharp and Jon was not fooled. "None of you business, you bastard." He almost chuckled. 

"Do I have time to introduce you to the free folk first? Or are we tearing down south at a lightning speed?"   
Arya smiled "I didn't come all this way not to see the 'True North'. Show me. Hear about my travels. Be you and I'll be me, and we can be a pack again." Jon smiled a true smile, maybe the first in years, Arya's eyes softened. As they turned towards camp the sun had begun to rise in ernest, painting the scattered clouds orange and pink. Into the stillness and peace, Arya spoke. 

"Oh, I've forgotten to say, I've killed that bear you were tracking, it's a couple minutes walk from here. Do you think the wildlings will want it?"


End file.
